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OWEN SOUND -- An animal rights group claims a "culture of cruelty" exists at a hatchery in Ontario.

Mercy For Animals Canada (MFA), the group which alleged last month that turkeys were suffering abuse at a plant in Exeter, has released covertly filmed footage of conditions inside Horizon Poultry in Hanover, north of Kitchener. Horizon is a federally registered hatchery owned by Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

The video shows chicks being thrown, drowned, scalded to death and ground up alive.

An undercover investigator, who was hired by Horizon earlier in the winter, made the film.

Krista Osborne, an MFA spokeswoman, said neither Horizon nor its parent company, Maple Leaf Foods, had been targeted by the organization.

"We don't target jobs. We apply for job postings just like anybody in the general public can do and (our investigators) take the first company that hires them," Osborne said Tuesday.

Maple Leaf Foods, which owns the hatchery, was made aware its plant had been infiltrated by an undercover operative approximately two weeks ago, said spokesman David Bauer.

"We launched a full investigation to substantiate the claims," Bauer said. "We took corrective actions as necessary."

Bauer said the video raised issues the company identified.

"It is a criminal offence in Canada to cause unnecessary suffering to animals. In particular in Ontario, Ontario law prohibits causing an animal to be in distress," Osborne said.

She says MFA will continue to investigate establishments like Horizon.

"It is our goal that organizations like Maple Leaf Foods change their practices," she said. "We don't expect that they're going to do it overnight, but there's no question that we will go in for a second time."

Brad Dewar, an agent with the Ontario Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said Tuesday the society is in the early stages of investigating the allegations.